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Setting the line right now

Published April 4th, 2008 in brain, teevee and poindextrose. 0 Comments

Before the final season starts, I am laying my cards on the table in re the final Cylon. Get it out there in print so I can look good once I’m right, or the fool once I’m proven wrong.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should probably turn back now, there’s nothing for you here.

I thought I was playing it cool over the last week, not geeking out quite so much, but turns out over the last few hours, knowing that the Galactica premiere airs in now less than four hours, I can’t stands it no more.

Last March, so very long ago, when the finale aired and four of the final five were revealed, I was pretty proud of myself for picking up three of the four (Tigh, Tory and Anders), but the accomplishment was minimized a little in that they pretty much told you as much in the first part of the two parter. Tyrol was a surprise, I believe I shouted at the TV.

I’d chosen two others in my back-and-forth with Ms. Julia Bronsteter (nee Kirkham), but now that we’ve only got one left, I’ve got to pick a horse, or chicken out and pick someone new.

Fortunately, I’m confident enough in my pick to side with one of my originals, and ride them ’till we’re done.

Felix Gaeta.

There, I said it. The marvelous, ever-present, vaguely simpering (in a good way) Gaeta. He was at the helm of the only ship destined to (really) survive the attacks; is responsible for the ‘mistake’ of miscommunicating jump coordinates when Adama is shot, a problem only solved by creating a dreaded computer network; sticks by Baltar’s side the whole time on New Caprica, but still helping the resistance, for some end; lies to implicate Baltar at the trial (he pissed off the Cylons); and is just overall one of those ubiquitous presences that HAS to have some sort of ominous hand in everything. Plus the gay vibe. Kidding.

There’s just too much, and he’s too shifty and sly, I don’t even think he’s a sleeper, I think he knows what’s what.

Very tricky, Mr. Gaeta. You have 20 episodes left to prove me right or wrong.

P.S. Jon, don’t you dare tell me anything. Or. Else. You. Die. I don’t care how married you’re getting. There would be killing.

Any fellow Galactites with theories?

When it hits…

Published March 20th, 2008 in brain. 1 Comment

I had a moment today — my first, so far as I can remember (at least the first that counts), panicked napkin-writing moment.

I’ve finally been writing. As with most things I do, creative-wise, I spent months putting together fine details, building plot and character in my brain, and now I’m spilling it out in relatively even bursts of 10 or so pages a day, plus even more raw notes to be distilled later. It’s a decent pace, and one that I hope to maintain for a while, even if it means I lose a touch of sleep.

I’m sure I’ve written things on napkins before, in haste or laziness, but this was the first time I’d been hit by something so immediate and crucial that it had to be down rightnowrightherenoquestionsaskedorelseyouforget. The first time I’d been hit by a crystalizing idea and not in the presence of paper, or a notebook, or a computer — the only things at my disposal a pen and a Starbucks. Their brown recycled napkins are surprisingly resilient, and hold ideas well.

The moment felt interesting, as have a number of others lately as I feel more like a writer than I have since I wrote my infamous play, and perhaps even much moreso as this one feels much more real. Is this true inspiration? Is this how it feels? Draggy from lack of sleep, but rushed from energy and excitement to get things on paper?

It’s fun, whatever it is.

Side note: Various tonics (Limoncello and soda), as well as deliciousdelicious scotch — relaxing writing companions in small doses (not to be a lush of course — I’m not patterning myself THAT much after Raymond Carver — but just that tiny bit lubricating you need to eliminate some of the worrying filters on occasion). Drambuie, on the other hand? Soporific to an extent I didn’t think possible. Fell right asleep in my Syd Field book (I know, I know…) while seated upright at a desk.

Urge … to punch-uate … rising

Published March 12th, 2008 in muzak and poindextrose. 0 Comments

That may be my favourite blog title I’ve ever written.

But they say that the best material comes out of conflict, and man am I conflicted.

Vampire Weekend.

Do I hate them? Do I love them? Do I just want them to call me up at about 11 at night once or twice a week and be gone before breakfast?

On the one hand, they’ve got a rather staggering amount of cable-knit sweaters and boat shoes, sound a tad too much like early Police, and are just generally Upper-East-Side, Cape-Cod, Ivy-Leagued privileged music geeks who were on the cover of Spin before they had a record released (read: someone’s Daddy knows someone, even if it’s just Mr. Franklin and all of his friends, Washington, Lincoln, et al).

On the other hand — so. damn. catchy. Exhibit A — “Oxford Comma”. Is it just that the English grad in me is giddy at the prospect of a song centred around punctuation? Should I be offended, as I am definitely one to have an opinion on Oxford commas, and have recently gone to lengths to communicate that opinion to a colleague (they’re perfectly correct and appropriate in a large number of situations!)?

I’m very much unsure how I feel about the record as a whole. Does my sensibility towards the extreme preppy attitude impact my clear enjoyment of the music? I mean, for God’s sake, they have a song whose central conceit is about being too bored at Cape Cod. Their music is based pretty heavily in not only pointing out how educated and privileged they are, but in pretty much celebrating it. It’s the kind of setup that makes even mild-mannered gentlemen like myself get all clenchy-fisted and forced to push back a desire to pummel some squares.

The fodder for ridicule and much railing-against in pretty much all other indie pop, done in a way that would seem pretentious to the freakin’ Arcade Fire? Shouldn’t I hate this? (And yes, I realize that if you google “Vampire Weekend” and “blog”, you get thousands of other middle-class 20-something hipsters wondering the exact same thing.)

I probably should. However, I most definitely do not. At least not yet.

It’s raining FBI agents

Published March 6th, 2008 in brain, muzak and coolness. 0 Comments

Song of the moment:

(There exists no actual video for this song, and the other Youtube mashups all involve a lot of footage of riots and tanks, or video game vidcaps — I almost took the Dead Rising one — so I just stuck with a simple playing of the song.)

P.S. Yes, I did get this from the finale of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, but when there’s Cash playing while dead guys rain into a pool, from the POV of the pool, it makes for some pretty wicked compelling TV.

Workin’

Published February 26th, 2008 in brain, muzak and werk. 1 Comment

Just to show that no matter how much you supposedly ‘grow up’, there’s still all kinds of proof to the contrary, specially if you choose a ‘creative’ field to get into. I spend a great deal of time at work thinking. Just thinking. I’ve always worked like that. Ideas come in bursts. Or rather the implementation of ideas goes in bursts. I’ll spend a good couple of hours figuring out precisely how I want to word something, or what sort of spin I want to put on the particular (generally educational or financial institutionally-related) project I’m working on, then bang it out quick before the idea runs away.

This is what I look like at work. Or at least what I am allowed to look like should I not feel like, y’know, cleaning myself up a little bit.

But in my defense, when one of the other fine fellows here at work can regularly sport a t-shirt with a cupcake who threatens that he ‘unna eet choo!’, I figure I can rock the old band tee and three day face.

P.S. The song is “Let’s Dance to Joy Division” by The Wombats (already pimped on the sidebar there), or possibly “Soundtrack for the Night” by Joel Plaskett Emergency. Love that my work investment was a nice pair of headphones. I also tend to keep track of what song inspires particularly good work ideas. “A Horse With No Name” and “The Blower’s Daughter” by Neil Young and Damien Rice, respectively, have sparked an especially good Humber College idea.

P.P.S. Yes, that is Philip J Fry breakdancing behind me, and yes, he is accompanied by dinosaurs. I have a cool desk.

Where the illusion happen

128-bit Memory Lane

Published January 15th, 2008 in retrospecticus, megaspection, poindextrose and l337 gamez. 0 Comments

In my pre-work blog perusal this morning, my one of my bookmarked gaming blogs (Level Up at Newsweek) linked to a piece on MTV Multiplayer featuring little blurbs from gaming luminaries/writers/creators/journalists about their first real gaming memory.

Seeing as a lot of these people are older than me, though not by too too much, most of the memories involve the Atari 2600, or cabinet arcade games, but a few choice nuggets really triggered a flood of memories in me as well.

I’ve been on a big gaming kick lately, and 2007 was a very, very good year in video games, so it was a good time for me to jump back in. Probably even a bigger kick than towards the end of my university career, when I went on a very short but intense kick of sending resumes out to video game publishers in hopes of getting a (very elusive) job on the creative/production side. Turns out, if you can’t program, you better have a game or two to your credit already, or years of experience elsewhere that is somehow applicable.

I still believe gaming is the next big entertainment front, one where there will be a huge break in the next few years as a primary storytelling form, maybe even nearing the impact that movies or TV have, so maybe I can look into it in the future. For now, I’ve sufficed with reading a ton about what’s going on in the industry, and taking in the amazing games that have been on offer lately (having finally purchased the 360 that had been saved up for for more than a year).

But as to the nostalgic kick mentioned earlier, it only took seven words: Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?

I loved those games. The word “Broderbund” is forever etched into my brain as a bringer of good things. But that recollection sent me back even further. I knew Carmen and her motley crew thieved away with a big part of my heart as a kid, but they weren’t the first, so who was? I pictured a mountain. A mountain made up of blue lines, pretty basic early computer art. Big blue letters. What did the letters say?

Sierra.

I saw big ears. Who did these ears belong to? Oh man, that takes me back. Soft white vinyl case, creaking plastic.

Mickey’s Space Adventure.

There may have been earlier games, those floppy disks full of 4-bit bowling games, game shows, dozens of games probably no bigger than 5kb for the Commodore (we had a 128, no stinkin’ 64 for us, no sir), but that space-faring mouse and his quest for … something were the beginnings of what I’m only now realizing is a lifelong and close friendship with video games. I truly believe that those early educational games helped sate my need for dynamic interaction (I was a bright kid who craved stimulation), helped me solve puzzles (even when they got repetitive, and I did play them until I knew them backwards and forward) and develop my brain, and I may not be who I am today if I resorted to amusing my only-child self in front of even more children’s TV or other solitary activity.

So I googled it for fun, and guess what? It still runs. Those geniuses at ScummVM (the emulator that runs old Lucasarts games, among many others, on modern computers) has included Mickey’s Space Adventure in its most recent build.

I found the ROM, updated my (*sheepish eyes* … work computer) version of ScummVM to the recent beta, and heard that familiar bleeping within about 90 seconds. I switched off then, as I’m not a complete layabout at work and I had plenty to do, but just knowing that I can go back and explore the solar system with Mickey and Pluto again anytime I like, even though our Commodore 128 is long, long, long dead, is immensely comforting.

It even more or less sums up my current feelings on video games. The best experiences, to me, involve adventure, intrigue, a decent amount of heart, and no less thought, preferably more. Where hundreds of thousands of other impressionable youth were gobbling down pellets in Pac-Man, or shooting down 10-pixel planes in Combat for the 2600, or God-forbid playing E.T. for Atari, I was flying the solar system in a primary-coloured, slow-to-load, memory crystal-searching starship from the planet Oron.

Good times indeed.

P.S. Stay tuned for reviews of the last five years in my gaming life, maybe more. Seems to me that reviews are something I’m quick at, and can help me write with a purpose on a regular basis. I’ve got a list here, I plan to address it.

First up, Portal.

Only the Brits.

Published January 2nd, 2008 in brain, coolness and poindextrose. 0 Comments

More specifically, only Stephen Fry, one of the most sterling examples of Brits.

Watch this. Now.

Done? Wasn’t it marvelous? Doesn’t it just grab you by the testicles, or by whichever testicular substitute/equivalent you may happen to possess, and shake you until something tears?

For Christmas, my dad gave us the first season/disc (as BBC seasons of TV are criminally short) of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, sketch comedy by the two gentlemen who most make sense in such a show, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie (TV’s House, among many other wonderful things). This sketch appeared about midway through, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It very aptly summarizes many, many of the things I think about language, but which I also realize I believe/think almost solely because of previous Fry writings I’ve previously read. Language is amazing, and the substance of this sketch effectively illustrates why I have made working with it my life’s meat.

I mean, if you take out some of the quirks of delivery, and Hugh Laurie’s interjections, which were mostly likely only included to give him something to say in the four minutes this sketch takes to play out, this could essentially be a part of a History of the Language lecture at just about any university. There is stuff in here that is deliciously complex ⎯ things about culture and language and perception and and and … I love him.

Stephen Fry is a golden god.

Much of the series, as far as I can tell so far, is based very much around Fry’s notions of playfulness and flexibility of language as not only a purveyor of message, but a shaper therein. Things are funny not only because of how they are said or by whom (although those aspects are not hurt by the two immensely talented people saying them), but most essentially by exactly what is being said, down to the finest verbal detail. I must own it all.

I may be a nerd, but…

Published November 28th, 2007 in internetz and poindextrose. 0 Comments

These people need some pummeling. At the very least.

I was going to put this in my little sidebar, but I was concerned people might miss it over there, and if anyone is even still reading this here corner of cyberspace, this cannot be missed.

While I may disagree with a bit of the book-bashing in the actual linked post here, Harry Potter being something I do enjoy, I have to say I agree with the calls for nerd-bashing and the doubts raised over the ability of people involved herein in regards to copulation, shall we say.

I also enjoy the word ‘poindextrose’.

But here’s the video in question, free of exterior linkage, to help us all re-engage in the ages old favourite sport of all, Vassar bashing.

Contentment

Published November 26th, 2007 in brain and megaspection. 0 Comments

A number of things finally converged over this past weekend, leading to a much more relaxed and contented Liam.

It’s been a while since I finally felt more or less settled in where I am and what I’m doing. It’s both unsurprising that making some big changes can really change your mindset and surprising that just a couple of little things can add up to taking that so much further.

First off, the new place is magic. Not really any other way to describe it. It’s had some crazy narcotic effect on our cats, making them more affectionate with us and each other, and much more easy going in general. Go figure. It’s so much closer to work, temperate (with realistically controllable heat), painted nice colours, and just flat out much more liveable. More conducive to conducting an ordinary life. Being able to do laundry whenever I want without blowing $2.50 (or more if someone decides to screw with your dryer mid-cycle and not restart it/the dryer just flat out doesn’t work) — it’s a little thing, but it’s so freeing.

I spent an hour putting books on bookshelves, finally. Small gesture, and they’re not nearly into an acceptable ‘arrangement’ yet, as Beth and I both occasionally have Rob Gordon-esque needs for organization by theme/subject/author/no-particular-rhyme-except-what-feels-right which can take weeks of fine-tuning. But it feels like home. That gawdawful last place ate into me, got me stuck in that terrible rut, took my money, my 2006, my cat, and my gallbladder. < hyperbole > I hope the place burns down. < /hyperbole >

There’s actual room to entertain here, there isn’t years and years of dust mites and dead air circulating through crumbling 8-storey concrete. A gas stove means fun to cook, and seeing as I’ve been doing my best to take care of Beth as she recovers from having wisdom teeth dug out of her head, every little bit helps. A double sink! Again, a tiny, seemingly insignificant thing, but doing dishes and being able to dry/rinse/put away in an easier cycle than cramming everything onto some decaying dishrack on top of a decaying fiberboard countertop is so much easier.

A new showerhead. Yeah, I know! The one we moved in with was small, little weak, visibly crusting with lime/buildup, condensed little stream of water that only measured probably 3 inches across, meaning you had to stand right in one place. But we went and bought a new one. I was initially worried a little about yet more money that hadn’t been anticipated spending, but what a difference. Nice uniform streams, a wide halo of water, nice pressure, clean — I realize it’s remarkably trivial and silly, but I felt so good after that shower, it was 11:30 after a day of laundry and cleaning and chores and unpacking and cooking but it felt like I could have gone another few hours.

So yeah, I suppose moving is never really a small change, but realistically it is just a roof and some floors, and ideally some walls, but it really does help cleanse one’s brain palette, if you will. All we need now is picture frames hung (once I get over my fear of drilling into the plaster walls) and some room-dividing bookshelves to create a faux kitchen/living room wall, and we’re set for years to come.

But contentment is a dangerous word. Having finally achieved a state wherein I’m not mostly stressed, or worrying about some such stupid thing, means I cannot relax. I have to keep moving. I can’t let pretty trappings stop me from moving forward. I’ve got a job whose ass still needs to be kicked on a regular basis. I’ve got a lady who ain’t gonna treat herself right (or probably will, but should be by me anyway). I’ve got words to write.

To < uber-bold >WRITE< /uber-bold >.

There are words that are fightingfightingfighting to get out. I’m reading the blog of Diablo Cody, writer of Juno, the Michael Cera/Ellen Page movie I must see. She was a stripper (college educated and kooky, mind) who decided to write a screenplay and who is now touring the country (and world) on press junkets and developing more movies and a Showtime series for Dreamworks (read: Spielberg!). Ass is there to be kicked. Not to mention the fact that Canadian nets are always developing original pilots. Mind you, most are for show so they have money on the books being spent on Canadian talent, never to see series, to keep up appearances so they can keep buying US skeins with marginally clean consciences, but hell, I’d gladly be a CanCon front! Please sir, may I? And of course milady gives me occasional kicks in the pants to shut up about wanting to write and to write. I should listen to her, as in all things. Plus I blew my lunch/downtime today at work reading this interview with Ron Moore on IGN from aaaaages ago. Dude started out by handing a spec script to a friend of a friend who was walking him through Star Trek:TNG’s set on a tour. Dude’s got a poli-sci degree, wrote a play in high school, and just knew where he was supposed to end up. I hope that sounds familiar.

I’ve gone on way too long again. Meant to drop a quick note from work, ended up peppering the whole workday with throwing darts at the blog.

It sure ai’is…

Published October 17th, 2007 in teevee, internetz and coolness. 0 Comments

Quick note from work, in between thousand-word academic research papers (essentially) for Humber College faculty site.

I’m back on the interweebs on a weekly basis at Ain’t It Cool News, doing pre-air (in America anyway) reviews of the wonderful Pushing Daisies, which I pimped not so long ago in the post directly below this one.

CTV is nice enough to have filled it’s Wednesday night with mediocre stuff from other networks, so it airs a day early on Tuesdays, before ABC’s slot the next night.

My first two are here and here.

Read and enjoy, and check back there weekly on Wednesdays for my reviews (as L-Prime, as the site uses clever pseudonyms), unless the guy was serious about being flown up to Vancouver weekly to review it instead of us Canucks. Somehow I don’t believe they’re serious.

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So, even if there are forests that start on fire in the future, there has to be a better way of fighting them than calling on Dr. Wily’s evil army. What exactly do we do if this thing starts to run amok? Where is the Quick Boomerang to slow him down?

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This is AMAZING. I wish I had the station in the world to dump all over every single group of people, EVER, and look adorably crotchety doing it. Or this is the finest example of dry British wit I have ever seen. Either way, kudos to Prince Philip.

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It might take my music snob cred down a notch or two, but is it wrong that this is one of my favourite things to come out of the existance of Joy Division?

Enjoy. via

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Jack McBrayer and Michael Cera should get together and have babies. They could share carrying them like Arnold and DeVito in whatever the hell movie that was, or something. I just like picturing them as a domestic couple, but deciding which one would be the lady is proving exceedingly difficult.
McBrayer does have some hilarious new stuff up on Funny or Die though. Go. Watch.

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I really, really, really wish all elections, and all disputes with multiple choices as a whole, were settled this way. Funny thing is how close a prognostigator they may turn out to have been.

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Watch out Katie, you’ve got some stiff professional competition.

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